Weakened Cyclone Hits Bangladesh, But Damage Is Less Than Feared

Bangladeshi fisherman haul their fishing boat to a safer place ahead of the arrival of tropical cyclone Mahasen in Chittagong, Bangladesh.
Zuma Press

By

Gaurav Raghuvanshi and

Syed Zain Al-Mahmood

Updated May 16, 2013 1:11 p.m. ET

Cyclone Mahasan weakened into a tropical storm as it made landfall Thursday, but it still brought tidal surges, heavy rain and strong winds, causing considerable damage in the fishing villages of Bangladesh and, to a lesser extent, Myanmar.

Officials in Myanmar said no deaths had been reported. But in Bangladesh, 14 people died from falling trees and collapsing walls, the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management said.

The storm caused less damage to the two Bay of Bengal nations than had been feared, although the death toll is expected to rise as communication is restored. Myanmar's disaster planning also has gotten better in recent years, and Bangladesh has dramatically improved its system since the deadly Cyclone Bhola killed up to a half million people in 1970.

Myanmar's military and security forces started evacuation on Monday as part of the government's plan to move close to 160,000 people out of harm's way. But authorities had trouble getting the people—mostly Muslim Rohingyas—to move to safer places. Tens of thousands of Rohingyas have been living in camps in Myanmar's Rakhine state, after having been displaced during intercommunal violence in 2012.

Photos

Cyclone Mahasen weakened Thursday afternoon into a tropical storm and then dissipated.

About 78,000 internally displaced people had been moved in Myanmar, the United Nation's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said late Thursday, citing government estimates.

"We've certainly had a problem with getting people to move … The internally displaced people in Myanmar have been very fearful to travel with military. They perhaps don't know what is happening and fear violence where they are moved," OCHA spokeswoman Kirsten Mildren said from Bangkok.

In Bangladesh, authorities managed to move hundreds of thousands of people out of harm's way, Ms. Mildren said. The government has trained nearly 50,000 community volunteers in disaster management, and the country has more than 3,000 cyclone shelters, many of which double as schools. Its early warning system was also bolstered following Cyclone Sidr in 2007 and Aila in 2009, which killed a total of 4,300 people.

The Bangladesh Meteorological Department said Cyclone Mahasen had weakened and had hit the Sitakunda and Feni regions of Bangladesh, adjoining India's Tripura state. The cyclone is likely to move northeast and gradually lose strength. Squally weather may continue over North Bay and coastal regions of Bangladesh, it said.

In Khepupara town, in the southwestern Patuakhali district of Bangladesh, families sheltering from the storm said they were worried about their homes, rice fields and shrimp farms.

"If the seawater reaches our shrimp farms, the shrimp will escape and the whole year's work will be ruined," said Nazrul Islam, a 30-year-old farmer. "But at least my family is safe," he said.

In Bangladesh's tourist zone of Cox's Bazar, local officials and humanitarian agencies were concerned about the estimated 250,000 Rohingyas from Myanmar who live in squalid, makeshift huts along the shoreline.

"They don't want to move inland for fear of being arrested," said Abdul Hannan, a local council official. "But right now they're exposed to the elements."

Lt. Col. Zahid Hasan, commanding officer of Border Guards' 42 Battalion in Teknaf, on Bangladesh's southeastern tip, said 21 bodies were recovered Thursday afternoon from the sea, apparently from an accident earlier in the week when several boats carrying more than 100 Rohingyas trying to flee the cyclone had capsized.

"We are assuming these are the people from the boat from Pauktaw, Rakhine that capsized on Monday night because none of the locals here have reported anyone missing," he said.

—Myo Myo in Yangon and Celine Fernandez in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this article.

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